Creeping irrelevance

 Marvin Harrison Jr. is the top wide receiver entering the 2024 NFL draft, but you won't see him participating in any drills this week at the annual NFL combine.

According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, he'll meet with teams, but not work out. Neither, apparently, will Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels of LSU, one of the top quarterback prospects.

"Is this because the NFL combine is the Greatest Spectacle In Overthinking Stuff?" you're saying now.

Possibly.

"Is it because they evaluate offensive linemen's 40-yard dash times even though they'll never have to run 40 yards in a game, and it's therefore completely irrelevant to whether or not they can block anyone?" 

Might be a factor.

"Is it because all you have to do is watch game tape to realize Marvin Harrison Jr. is an athletic freak who'll likely be the next Megatron or Randy Moss?"

Ah. Now you're onto something.

It's already been a number of years since top quarterback prospects started declining to throw during the combine, opting instead to do so in private workouts for NFL scouts and GMs. But this is something relatively new: A stickout wide receiver deciding to skip not only combine workouts but Ohio State's Pro Day, on the theory that anyone in the NFL with a working brain cell already knows he can run fast and jump high.

So he's relying on game tape and his reputation as a hard worker, according to Breer. Also his 144 catches for 2,474 yards and 28 touchdowns the last two seasons at OSU.

He's doing this because he's in a unique position to do so, and also because he assumes NFL scouts and GMs have working sets of eyeballs. In other words, the conversation kind of goes like this:

"But, Marvin Jr., how do we know you can play if you don't run fast and jump high in shorts at the combine?"

"You got eyes, doncha?"

This is the problem with the combine, at least where the high-end, high-visibility picks are concerned: In most cases, NFL teams already know if they can play or not. The combine merely gives them more chances to second-guess themselves.

Wow, Bubba Furlong's 40 time wasn't as fast as we expected. He didn't lift very well, either, or jump as high as we thought he could. Also he's an eighth of an inch shorter than his listed height and didn't react very well when the GM of the Pottsville Maroons asked if his mom was a hooker.

Fast forward to draft day, when they pass on the next Peyton Manning and take the next Bobby Douglass instead.

"So you're saying the combine has become completely irrelevant?" you're saying now.

Not entirely. But it surely is for guys like Marvin Harrison Jr. And it's hardly an infallible evaluation tool anyway, given how often teams swing and miss on players in spite of all the evaluating they do in the run-up to the draft.

("No s***," say a couple of guys you might have heard of. I think they go by "Tom Brady" and "Brock Purdy.")

Of course, some NFL writers will say Harrison bailing on the workouts is a red flag that indicates an unwillingness to compete. But once again Marvin Jr. has the appropriate response -- and if you don't know what that is by now, you haven't been paying attention.  

All together now: "You got eyes, doncha?"